> Ah, the SAM Coupé, it was such a bad luck coming at the end of 8 bit home computers.
You're right. I feel it should have had a much faster Z80 as stock, but it was probably too expensive at the time.
The very next year, the MSX Turbo R machines shipped with an R800 CPU that was twice the speed and could run 16-bit code:
https://www.msx.org/wiki/ASCII_R800
This is more or less a Z280:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z280
> I used to do window shopping at computer store that had them in display, but they weren't worth the investment
I had one. I sold it to a friend about 20Y ago for £30. I bitterly regret that; a decade later it was worth 10x that, and now, I could get £1000 easily. I had some addons and extras.
> I would say a bit of its ideas lives on Spectrum Next.
I have one of those too. :-)
In some ways more ambitious, in some ways less, but the SAM had a better BASIC and a better DOS, and felt more like a thoughtful considered extension, while the Next feels like a clone Spectrum with a fibreglass body kit stuck on with spoiler and airdam, turbocharger, nitrous oxide injection, and pulsing coloured lights underneath. ;-)
